MESQUITE, Texas (CBS HOUSTON)  A North Texas woman has been arrested after being accused of posting Facebook photos of an undercover policeman who testified against her friend in court.

Mesquite police arrested Melissa Walthall, 30, for allegedly posting the photo of the officer, who authorities say recently testified in a drug case against her friend. Her Facebook post identified the person as an undercover officer, according to a federal affidavit.

After a caller tipped off Mesquite police to Walthalls Facebook post about a week ago, an investigator found that it posed a viable threat to that officers safety, the affidavit said.

All the woman needs to do is read up on “doxing”. The, her attorney can demonstrate in court that it is relatively trivial to locate someone on facebook using a photo from somewhere else as a reference. If they can do it, any other criminal can as well; the officer screwed himself by posting his own photos. Once they’re up there, it doesn’t matter what his covert “name” is; he can be found just by his face. What she did is trivial compared to what a more violent criminal could do with that info, i.e. spread his real name and face to the rest of the criminal underworld, at which point he’d either be immediately at risk of being shot on sight, or if they’re smart they’d use him as a disinformation agent.

He blew it... if he is undercover he should not have social media accounts that truly depict him. His social media accounts should also be undercover. I have a relative in LE and no social media for them... it would compromise their work.

Idiot is the undercover poor excuse for LE.

7
posted on 10/16/2012 12:14:59 AM PDT
by antceecee
(Bless us Father.. have mercy on us and protect us from evil.)

“He blew it... if he is undercover he should not have social media accounts that truly depict him.”

I agree completely. While I don’t condone what this woman did, the LEO did a very foolish thing by putting himself out in the public eye. If your job is to go unnoticed by drug dealers and the like, it’s best to keep to the shadows when it comes to something like FB.

For the record, I oppose outing undercover agents and I approve of the prosecution of people who do so.

I do not agree, i believe undercover agents working against the citizens of this country is wrong because it is sneaky and sleazy, one side gets sleazy, the other side gets sleazy, soon Americans are just sleazy.

That being said, the fault is not in the stars or in social media as this article implies but in this destructive war on drugs that has more and more become a war on ourselves.I don,t use drugs but i agree.

I see nothing wrong with what she did. The police should not get any special treatment. If it can happen to us it can happen to them. If the info is out there then too bad he should not have posted it.

This is just like the police not wanting to be recorded while in the performance of their jobs. The court case was obviously not a closed case so anyone could see who he was at the courthouse and then followed up with a search. Police should have to live with the same rules and laws as us citizens.

If you are grounding your reply and your opinion alone, then it is obviously just as valid as my opinion. But if your suggestion is that there is a constitutional right to out an undercover police agent performing his duties, I strongly disagree.

There is no constitutional right to out a CIA agent in the performance of her duties and most of us would agree that it is absolutely necessary for the furtherance of our national security to maintain secrecy at that and other levels. To the degree that a narcotics undercover officer is operating lawfully (not desirably but lawfully) he should be in the same category.

If it is your opinion that he ought not to enjoy protection against being outed in the performance of his duties, I suggest that the way to change that is in the polling booth not on twitter. If your opinion is based on the futility of our war on drugs which more and more is inevitably leading to intrusions into privacy and converting citizens into enemies of the government, I would agree with you and I will walk with you to the polling place.

If you are grounding your reply and your opinion alone, then it is obviously just as valid as my opinion. But if your suggestion is that there is a constitutional right to out an undercover police agent performing his duties, I strongly disagree.

There is no constitutional right to out a CIA agent in the performance of her duties and most of us would agree that it is absolutely necessary for the furtherance of our national security to maintain secrecy at that and other levels. To the degree that a narcotics undercover officer is operating lawfully (not desirably but lawfully) he should be in the same category.

If it is your opinion that he ought not to enjoy protection against being outed in the performance of his duties, I suggest that the way to change that is in the polling booth not on twitter. If your opinion is based on the futility of our war on drugs which more and more is inevitably leading to intrusions into privacy and converting citizens into enemies of the government, I would agree with you and I will walk with you to the polling place.

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